Etiology of the Disease

Antenatal factors: growth problem, intrauterine infection, lower abdomen radiation during pregnancy, intrauterine asphyxia,

 

Birth-process factors: asphyxia, birth trauma, premature delivery

 

Postnatal factors:  Kernicterus, asphyxia, infection, trauma, bleeding, vascular insult Antenatal change is mainly due to maldevelopment of brain, may also be hydrocephalus, brain damage or deformity.  Prenatal changes are mainly scar, sclerosis, partial atrophy and defect in cerebral cortex.  Asphyxia and cerebral hemorrhage can cause damages in cerebral cortex; it is the main cause of cerebral palsy.  Brain damages and damages in cerebral cortex can lead to different level of cerebral atrophy.  Either disseminating encephalopathic change or damage of cerebral cortex due to cerebral edema before or after birth can cause scar, sclerosis or resulting in partial brain atrophy.  Maldevelopment of cortex or brain deformity will cause defect in cerebral cortex, these are the basic pathology.
 
Clinical Manifestation

Symptoms usually occurred in infancy.  There are totally six types of motor problem, and the common four types are:

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      1.    Spastic diplegia; the most common cerebral palsy.  Motor problem in both lower limbs is more serious than the upper limbs.  Slow motor development includes sitting, standing, walking, severe patient is unable to walk.  Tightening of muscle, walk in scissoring gait, eye ball movement problem, poor language and intelligence ability, with normal electro- ncephalogram.  Patients are always premature baby with birth weight under 2000 g.

     2.    Hemiplegic: caused by damage in unilateral.  Upper limbs movement problem is more serious than lower limbs.  Hypertonia, flexed and peronated upper limb, elbow, thumb and finger have flexion deformity, walk in circulated gait.  Some kids have epilepsy and intelligence developmental retardation.

      3.   Spastic tetraplegia with choreoathetosis: both upper limbs have more severe motor functional problems than lower limbs, damage in nervous system.  Hypertonia, athetosis or dyskinesia.  Damage in cerebellum, presented with nystagmus, coordination disorder in body and limbs, complication to mental retardation, pseudo- bulbar palsy. Injury in frontal or occipital lobes can cause patient difficult eye ball movement. There is a significant motor function developmental delay, even some cannot walk. Approximately 50% of them will have epilepsy with spasm occurred.

 

       4.   Choreoathetosis or dyskinestic cerebral palsy: various level of choreoathetosis found in face, tongue, lip and body, children below 1 year old will have hypotonia; kids have choreoathetosis movement from time to time after 1 year old, 50% were originated from kevincterus, 50% were originated from neonatal asphyxia.  If it was caused by kevincterus, pyramidal signs were not obvious; if it was caused by neonatal asphyxia, pyramidal signs were observed.  Mental development delay and epilepsy was mostly found in newborn infants.
 
Treatments for cerebral palsy
      Although common treatment method is applied in curing cerebral palsy, existing medical technique still cannot fully cure the disease.  However, with appropriate treatment, patients still can have great improvement in their conditions and a good quality of life.

      Cerebral palsy treatment is mainly carried out by comprehensive cooperation of doctors (paediatric neurologist, neurologist, orthopedics), physiotherapy, occupational therapist and orthostherapist, etc.

      In general, there are several treatments for cerebral palsy.  Each patient requires different treatment from time to time and it requires experienced doctors and team members to decide and implement.

-        Physiotherapy
-        Occupational therapy

-        Orthosis
-        Seating aids
-        Walking aids
-        Casting
-        Botulinum Toxin
-        Nerve block
-        Selective dorsal rhizotomy
-        Orthopaedic surgery
 
      Though there are certain ways to choose and use in curing cerebral palsy, each shouldn’t be counted as an individual method, those should be applied and seen as combined treatment upon patient needs.
 
Tongue acupuncture brings hope to patients with cerebral palsy
      Throughout the years of research and clinical observation of cerebral palsy, a newly tongue acupuncture treatment system was formed.  

      The new discovery of sublingual swelling in cerebral palsy is an important clinical statistics and objective standard of tongue acupuncture treatment for cerebral palsy. Though the relationship between sublingual swelling and cerebral palsy is still unknown, its existence is a fact.  96.64% of 1728 kids suffered from brain disorders (including cerebral palsy, autism, intelligency disability) has sublingual swelling. Sublingual swelling and the severity level has direct relationship, the more obvious of sublingual swelling, the more severe level of illness is.  With tongue acupuncture treatment and improvement in patient’s condition, sublingual swelling shrinks or becomes normal.  It is the first time in the world discovered the correlation between sublingual swelling and brain diseases (refer to figures below).